


A Bird in the Hand

by ProlixInSpace



Series: Viren Week 2020 [2]
Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Backstory, Drinking, Drunkenness, First Meetings, Gen, Gift Giving, Stag Nights & Bachelor Parties, Viren Week (The Dragon Prince), Viren Week 2020, Weddings, new pet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23541655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProlixInSpace/pseuds/ProlixInSpace
Summary: On the eve of Harrow's wedding, after a particularly raucous bachelor party, Viren gives him an unusual wedding gift.(Written for Viren Week 2020, Prompt 3: Gift)
Relationships: Harrow & Viren (The Dragon Prince), Harrow/Sarai (The Dragon Prince), Viren/Viren's Ex-Wife (The Dragon Prince)
Series: Viren Week 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1693006
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21





	A Bird in the Hand

**Author's Note:**

> As with The Portrait, I consider this to take place in the same universe as my larger fic, The Time That Is Given Us. 
> 
> No, I could not resist the punny title.

**(Viren Week 2020, Day 3: Gift)**

**A Bird in the Hand**

Harrow leans so far over the table his nose is practically touching the wood. His dreadlocks pool around him. He slurs, “Am I really getting married tomorrow?” 

“That depends,” Viren replies, “who are you again?”

They both collapse into a fit of laughter. 

The party _started_ reasonably enough -- a few dukes and earls and the like had hired performers, brought in exotic liquors and foods, and enjoyed the kind of just-a-shade-bawdy fete that suited a prince on the eve of his wedding day. Even the king himself made a brief appearance, emphasis on _brief._

Somehow though, the night wore on, as it tends to do. The band broke down and joined the affair as guests, as their contract allowed. Courtesy and wit and high-stakes cards gave way to collectively-bellowed drinking songs, a distinct drop in the quality of the liquor, and a game of _I haven’t in my life_ so revealing that Viren now has blackmail material on half the Pentarchy, if he can remember any of it in the morning. 

By now, most of them have either fallen asleep on chaises and in corners, or managed to stagger off (alone or in scandalous pairs about which the discreet palace staff would never speak a word) to one guest room or another. 

It is the wee hours, and as far as either of them knows, only Harrow and Viren remain awake, seated on either side of the rough wooden table in the office that Viren has so recently been granted for his own. It doesn’t _feel_ like his just yet, though after tonight, he’s hoping it’ll have a bit more of a familiar atmosphere -- the effect of a happy memory.

“Technically,” Viren points out, squinting at the fading dark out the window. “You’re getting married _today.”_

“My god,” Harrow says, hand to his forehead. “Whatm--what’ll--this’ll be difficult.”

“Do you really--really think Sarai will be any better off?" Viren chuckles. "I bet her party hasn’t even _started_ to wind down. Come to think of it, I should have gone to that one.”

That sends Harrow into another conniption of laughter. “Can you imagine it? We’ll be standing up there, dressed in our finest, completely--um--what does your wife call it?”

“Carpenters in the forehead!” Viren volunteers, enthusiastically. “And I don’t have to imagine it, I’m going to _see_ it in… what, twelve hours?”

“Twelve--oh, god--Viren, I have to go to _bed--”_

“Wait, wait, waitwaitwait--”

“I’m a prince!”

“Yes you’re very nice.”

“No, I mean,” Harrow cackles, “you could get in trouble, telling royalty to wait like that--”

“Oh yes, I’m sure, terrible trouble,” Viren brushes aside, “do you want your gift or not?”

“Viren, I have to _sleep._ Can you imagine--”

“Yes, we’ve been through that part.”

“What gift?” Harrow frowns, a little late to his side of the conversation. 

Viren doesn’t say anything. He just pulls one leg over the bench seat and then the other, disentangling himself from the table with all the grace of a newborn ambler missing a limb. With one hand, he beckons Harrow to follow him to the portrait -- who the golden-haired little girl is, he has no idea, the painting came with the office and even his predecessor’s predecessor apparently doesn’t know -- and the artwork swings obediently away from the wall.

“Viren…?”

“Hm?”

His eyes are wide, his mouth a gentle o-shape. “I have lived here... all my life... and didn’t know that did that.” 

“Well whose fault is it if you aren’t curious?” Viren jokes, leaning heavily on Harrow’s shoulder. “Follow me, follow me, oh, damn, the stupid stone thing--” 

It takes him three attempts in his inebriated state but he finally manages it. At the bottom of the spiral steps (an adventure in and of themselves) Viren stops Harrow, a hand on each shoulder. 

“Close your eyes,” he insists.

“If I close my eyes, I’ll fall down,” Harrow argues.

“Okay, turn around, then--” Viren pivots him bodily so he faces the wall. 

“Viren I swear, if this is some kind of spooky--”

“Not spooky, just wait.”

“Is it a potion for a hangover?” Harrow asks, hopefully. “I could probably use that tomorrow.”

“Today,” Viren corrects again. Almost mournfully, he says, “And no, Sigrin used up the last of the seacat whiskers on your father, the seacat whisker guy hasn’t had anymore in _weeks.”_

“There’s a _seacat whisker_ guy?”

“Let’s not talk about that right now--” Viren doesn’t want to start this again. 

There’s almost no end to the components one can find for sale if one knows the right people, but some of the vendors with the most _extensive_ selection have a tendency to enlist the help of orphans and other indigents to do the riskiest bits of harvest. It’s an unpleasant business, something Viren knows a bit too intimately, and he does his best to avoid buying from them (even to the extent of crossing the border himself.) Still, there are certain spells, especially those of healing, that often can’t wait. Sometimes the ends justify the means, even when those means prop up an iffy industry. 

Sarai’s been on a crusade since she found out, but as he always reminds her, it isn’t as if he can just tell a chronically ill king that he doesn’t feel like purchasing the components necessary to keep him hale. It wouldn’t be a good look even if his best friend _wasn’t_ poised to take the throne. 

Viren lifts the gift gingerly out of a slightly soiled pile of hay and cloth. Its sleep disturbed, the gangly little creature opens shining, peridot eyes. It is soft in the cradle of his palms, a little black puffball with a beak sticking out of one end and two spindly legs sticking out of the other. 

When it gets older, those little soft fluffy feathers will grow sleek, and when it reaches maturity, it will gain the same bright-green plumage as its late parents.

It makes a thin, high-pitched squeal, like a door in need of oil. 

“Viren--”

“Turn around,” Viren says, standing before Harrow, baby songbird presented in his cupped hands.

Harrow turns. His eyes take a moment to refocus. He looks at the bird, and the bird looks back at him. He looks up at Viren, and Viren looks back at him. Viren wonders if their expressions are the same -- both of nervous hope for approval. 

“Where did you get this?” Harrow says, so soft his words slip beneath his breath. 

“It was a hatchling. Not what I was _looking_ for,” Viren explains clumsily. He elides the gory details and simply says, “I saw the mother killed by a predator in the forest. I guess it just seemed…”

 _“Adorable,”_ Harrow completes, in a voice watery with awe. His expression is almost childlike when he asks, “I can pick the name?”

“He’s your bird,” Viren offers.

In fact, it was so newly born when he discovered it that it didn’t even have the fluff yet, as naked as a chicken in an oven. Since then, he’s been feeding it little pieces of a nutritious paste, the recipe listed in a book on raising songbirds. A few hours ago, when he was more coherent, he had the cage and hot water bottle and all the rest sent up to Harrow’s chambers, and even taught a servant how to care for it.

Harrow speaks to the bird, now, as softly as he would to a human baby. “You’re just a little seed of a thing, so I think I’ll call you Pip. How do you like that?”

The newly-designated Pip squeals like an old wheel, and Harrow laughs softly. “Sarai will love him. I think I already do. This is hardly a _conventional_ wedding present, but you’re… hardly a conventional friend. Thank you, Viren.”


End file.
